


8 Rings Too Many

by Atunenamedclara



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotions, F/M, Loneliness, Other, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5785930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atunenamedclara/pseuds/Atunenamedclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor remembers Clara and is trying to get hold of her. For everyone's safety, she refuses to give in and talk to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	8 Rings Too Many

It rings in my hand. Again. That’s the 6th time this week and it’s only Tuesday. The sound of Don’t Stop Me Now coming from my pocket used to be the best sound in the world. It meant he was calling. But now, it’s the worst sound in the world. Because it means he’s calling.  8 rings. It’s always 8 rings. And then a beep and then he talks.  He always sounds so hopeful. Like he believed that this time might be the time I pick up the phone. That this time might be the time he hears my voice again, he hears my laugh, he hears anything at all from me. But it can’t be. And it can never be, and I don’t know which is worse anymore. The sharp but short ache of knowing that I must listen to a phone ring 8 times without picking it up, or the dull but constant ache that looking at a future full of ringing phones I must never answer brings.  
Something went wrong, I don’t know what, but something happened. He remembers me and he knows that I know he does. But he also knows I cannot see him again, must not see him again.  So instead, he phones me. Leaves me messages, telling me about the planets he’s saved and the ceasefires he’s created, talking to me, telling me about the things he’s done All. For. Me. And it kills me. 8 stabs in the chest. And even though I no longer breathe, each ring is a breath of air pulled out of my lungs and even though I no longer bleed my heart rips open at each ring.   
His voice is so close but has never seemed further away. In one message he told me he phones because my voicemail still makes him smile, always, even after all this time.  
But I cannot do it anymore. I must not. Because each ring leaves me crying and each second brings the temptation ever closer. The temptation to cut short those 8 rings. To press the phone to my ear and just say two words. Two words I must never say. “Come back” With those two words I could forever cease a lifetime of ringing phones. But instead I cut short the pain a different way. It is the only option left. I block him. And I cut short those 8 rings forever. And once again my heart stops beating. For once again I am alone. And I will never hear his voice again But that doesn’t hurt as much as knowing that he won’t ever hear mine.


End file.
